Freetime Management

So it appears that I'm not very good at structuring my time, now that most of my academic commitments are over. Not only are my papers in, but most of my tutorials have wrapped up, and I'm having some of my final lectures this week. I've been trying to fill my free time with cultural stuff--i borrow tons of movies from the Trinity library and supplement these with knitting projects (I just finished the second of a pair of Latvian mittens I've been working on: the first took three months, the second took one week), or I browse around the internet looking for concerts and Dubliny things to do. The sun's out almost every day now, spring has come full-force to Dublin, and I sit in a park almost every day for about an hour as I eat lunch. This week I've also been very into museums, as Dublin has a great number of the Irish national museums that are free, if not very good. Still, I get to a point in the afternoon where I wonder, what am I doing here? What is my purpose in staying here for so long? What am I accomplishing, really?

I think I had productivity on the brain this weekend when I visited Caitlin in Galway. For instance, I went to the Aran Islands and came back, not with a fisherman sweater, but with two kilos of yarn. To knit my own. I also spent a lot of money on presents--not souvenirs, but presents for events in the near, and far, future. For instance, I bought my parents books of love poetry for their upcoming 25th anniversary (Neruda for Mom because she knows a little Spanish, Yeats for Dad because Yeats is the best, obvi) and a flashy vest from this place called River Island for my sister's birthday on July 18th. A fun fact about me: I plan presents obsessively, almost as obsessively as I plan halloween and theme party costumes. When I was in high school, I was one of those girls who gave every single one of her friends very thoughtful trinkets for Christmas, all very carefully wrapped. I've learned better by now, because those gestures are rarely returned and buying presents for your 30 closest friends becomes expensive, but at the same time I can't help but fixate on those more mandatory presents. I've been visiting a book about the Wild Women of Irish History, planning to pick it up for my Nana for Christmas... I'm ridiculous.

Today I went to the Chester Beatty Library, a museum full of Chester Beatty's medieval Iranian manuscripts, Chester Beatty's Egyptian papyrus scrolls, Chester Beatty's very old fragment of one of the earliest bibles. Chester Beatty wasn't famous for any reason other than having all of these very old books. He really made a name for himself. I wonder if I'll ever have something that grandiose to offer the world.

SEE WHAT I THINK ABOUT WHEN LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES?

I also feel like I'm in a state of flux. I was away last weekend to Galway, the weekend before to London (which was lovely and which I'll try to write about someday but maybe I'll never get to it so just check out my facebook photos if you're interested in the meantime). This weekend I'll be in Belgium with Sally, and the weekend after that, Paris with my flatmates. There's the whole existential crisis of feeling unrooted, sure, but there are sensible implications as well. For instance, I've been having a very hard time shopping for groceries, because anything perishable I'll have to consume before the next weekend or it'll go bad. It's extra hard because I've been trying to eat well (or at least better), and foods that are good for you are often the first to go. I've never missed McEwen so much as I do now--I'd kill for a salad bar, sandwich fixin's, all of that at my fingertips. Variety is difficult to aquire when you're eating alone.

That's about all for now. Maybe I'll just do posts like this for the rest of the time, no big lists, just spontaneous impressions.

Rory and Andrew Do Dublin

Recap of Andrew's Visit:

Andrew came to Dublin on the morning of Sunday, March 15th. He was slightly delayed because there were boatloads of people (mostly Americans and Spaniards) piling into Ireland for St. Patrick's Day on the 17th. We spent most of our first afternoon resting and eating full Irish breakfast-type stuff.

Monday we trekked around Dublin, first to the Yeats exhibit at the National Library and then to the Writer's museum. We went to Trinity inbetween to try and get in for the book of Kells, but the line was out the door and around the corner. There were an obnoxious number of people EVERYWHERE: even at the Writer's museum, which anyone can tell you is not a flashy place. After oggling Elizabeth Bowen's manual Smith-Corona, we tried to go to the James Joyce centre, but alas, it was Monday. We made our way to the Winding Stair bookshop, stopping on the way in a pub called Bachelor.

Suprise suprise, I was the only woman in Bachelor. Additionally, Andrew and I were the only people under 35, and the most sober by far. A jubulant older man, shook our hands, and jubulantly bemoaned my cold hands. He asked me, "What do cold hands mean in a girl?" I answered a warm heart, and he said, "Oh, no... warm knickers! Bwa Ha Ha Ha!" He had several more anecdotes for us over the course of our half-pints, the most colorful of which was a story told deadpan about at 90-year-old woman who had been gang-raped by three men right outside the pub, and after eight hours in the hospital, the doctors couldn't stop her from saying, "More, more, more!" Needless to say we drank quickly, running out on the older man (who's Claddagh ring was up-side down, which means open for business, by the way) as he was telling us a story about Obama, repeatingly slurring our president's name into "Bahama". As we paid, a man at the bar asked us our names, and when I said "Rory," the whole place erupted in snickers.

When we got to the Winding Stair, it was closed. We took a cab to Zaytoon's for kebabs, and then spent the night in, watching movies.

Tuesday, St. Patick's Day, was hellish from the start. We woke and walked down to Dame Street at 11 a.m. for the parade. After two and a half hours of waiting in the windy, shadowy street, the parade came. Oh, did it ever come. Aside from the handful of American collegiate marching bands, the major floats were INTENSE, as was the level of commitment of the paraders. There were cique-de-solay style birds, the 60's, King Kong and all of his comrades, including film staff, and our favorite, a bunch of mad scientists and astronaut apes prancing around a spaceship while someone kept shouting, "Scientists assemble!" After the parade, we ran to the closest restaurant, ate, and then... went home for the rest of the day. Honestly, it was so hectic in every bar, and in downtown Dublin, that we only left for a solitary pint that evening. I can't say that i'd have it any other way.

Wednesday we got into the book of Kells and then hopped the commuter rail (the DART) to Howth, a sea-side resort area where I imagine several Dubliners spend their holidays. Howth boasted of seals, and if you paid 2 euro to a fish vendor, he'd give you a bag of fish heads to lure a seal your way. We walked up and down the pier, taking in the wonderful sea air, stopped for chowder, and then explored a ruined Abbey. For those of you who know Andrew and I as a couple, you know that this is our perfect day. We came home, I made chicken fajitas, and we went to bed early so we could get up at 4:30 a.m. to leave for Edinburgh.

In Edinburgh, we saw Lucea Spinelli, our friend who transferred from Hamilton our freshman year and has been going to St. Andrew's ever since. She took us all around the Meadows, a lovely span of park behind the bulk of the University, and then we sat outside and had beers with her friends. She took us to this mosque kitchen with some of the best Indian food I've had in months. We were getting sleepy by 3:30, as we had been up for 11 hours, and decided to head back to our B 'n B for some R 'n R. We woke up, just barely, at 9:30 p.m. Luckily, our Indian food was sticking to our ribs and we headed out to the Royal Mile in the Old Town just looking for a few drinks.

The Royal Mile, for those you don't know, is the area of Old Edinburgh that used to be walled in. It's significantly higher up than the rest of Edinburgh, with a sort of comic book gothic feeling to it--everything is elongated. We considered going on a ghost tour but then thought better of it, seeing as we were already pretty creeped out just being around those dark gothic streets in the dark. We found a bar that had a two-man cover band playing, so of course we stopped. The pair played all the Ireland greats: Valerie, Stand By Me, Your Sex Is On Fire, Mr. Brightsides, Someday (by the Strokes), you name it. We ended the night with this British reality show called "What if Women Ruled the Earth?", a survior-type show where women make men build fires, make dinner, sweep the huts, etc.

The next day, we took two tour buses with live guides. The first guide was fine, a proper elderly man who spoke too quietly, but our second guide was a real live-wire. He could name all the 81 Robert Browning characters on the Browning monument, at breakneck speed might I add. We got off the bus at the Edinburgh castle, then went to the Camera Obscura and the Hall of Illusions. Good Victorian fun, looking back on it. We tried to document manifestions of the Scottish Plaid Fad before heading back home for a siesta.

We were to meet our friend Kevin Kerr for drinks later, so before we grabbed the bus into town, we stopped at this fried-EVERYTHING stand. I ordered a hamburger "with 2 patties" with fries, and recieved two FRIED HAMBURGER PATTIES. I should have been so grossed out. I was so not. Full of grease, Andrew and I met Kevin at a whiskey bar. We then hopped to a more student-oriented bar, and then a more posh bar. It was lovely to see Kevin, what I can remember of that time.

The next morning Andrew and I tried to connect again with Lucea, but it wasn't in the cards. We also tried to find a vintage store Lucea told us was having a sale, but that wasn't in the cards either. It was sunny though, and after buying a few used books and other curios, we took the bus back to the airport.

Sunday was both melancholy and joyous, melancholy because Andrew was leaving on Monday but joyous because Ami Li arrived Monday afternoon. The three of us went to the Guinness factory while the rest of Dublin was out in City Centre, congratulating the Ireland rugby team for not just winning Six Nations, but SWEEPING it. The factory was worth missing the fanfare, however. Suffices to say that I'm obsessed with Guinness's various ad campaignes as of now.

Monday morning all three of us shipped out to the airport, Andrew on his way to the States and Ami and I headed for Amsterdam. But that'll come next time.

In other news, I'M DONE WITH ESSAYS. Until the fall. Can you believe it? I've been so obsessively-compulsively lazy ever since I finished, watching loads of movies and picking up an old knitting project. I've planned to be out for the rest of April--I'm actually heading to London tomorrow, back into Sally's arms. The weekend after that is Galway with Caitlin, then after that, Belgium with Sally, resident Belgian cuisine (and beer) expert. Paris for May Day, if all goes to plan... I'll keep you filled in.

Love, Me.

p.s. Scottish people: not as friendly or helpful as Irish people. I'll let you know about the English after this weekend.

Free at last...

Wowie zowie. I turned in three of my of my five solitary assessments for classes yesterday, and let me tell you, it's a huge load-off. Five thousand words is far too much for one paper. I've got one more paper due next week, but then I'm done until the end of May, when I take my Old English exam.

I'm also feeling pretty good for a few other reasons. First, I think I'm going to go home a little bit earlier than planned. After Andrew and Ami's visits, I realized just how long I've been away, and how long I'd have to stay away in the months to come, and it made me incredibly homesick. Additionally, if I go home the day I'm scheduled to go home now, I'd be in Dublin alone for five days. And I don't do very well alone. Since my only exam is on May 27th, I'm aiming to be home in the first few days of June. Ann Arbor in June--nothing could be lovelier.

I've also been thinking about what Hamilton will be like next fall, and I can't say I'm not worried. I admittedly had a weeping fit while discussing housing with Andrew on Skype for two and a half hours, having finally realized that Hamilton next fall is going to be unlike the Hamilton I'd loved in years past. Most of this realization was that the current seniors are going to be gone, out of the Hamilton scene, forever. When Andrew and I were trying to think of a cohesive group of seniors for a suite, honestly, we couldn't think of six people who would create the same dynamic as the girls of Babbitt 32 or 34, the boys of Babbitt 21, the dwellers of Milbank 12 all those years ago... Honestly, I've been looking forward to finally pulling my weight and creating a social space my senior year, and it just doesn't look like it will work out. Maybe I'll have to inflict my party concepts on other suites.

Course selection has also been stressing me out to no end, all because of one golden, impossible course: A history seminar about the IRA (Irish Republican Army). The bulk of my program's Belfast trip concentrated on the strained relationship between the Catholics and the Protestants, synonymous with the Republicans and the loyalists. I was actually out and about in Belfast the night some IRA members shot up some members of the British army. I'm absolutely captivated, and I know I would love this class more than many I've  taken at Hamilton. HOWEVER, it is a seminar, which means it takes up all of Tuesday afternoon, conflicting with 75 percent of the upper-level English classes I wanted to take. Ironically, I can't learn about the IRA and Prison Writing during the same term, a set-up that had enormous potential. Even if I opt out of the IRA class, I'm still struggling to put together a four-class schedule. I can't take studio art or anthropology, two things I've been meaning to do my whole time at Hamilton, because I don't have any pre-requisites. I'm only really interested in two or three of the English offerings, and god knows I don't want to take Women's studies again. I have a few extra credits that would allow me to take three classes, but going into a semester without a full courseload? I'd feel like such a slacker-pants.

At any rate, I'm looking forward to the rest of my time at Trinity. Trinity Ball tickets go on sale tomorrow, and I'm super amped. The student administration group put together this really cute trailer for it, you should check it out. Very Irish humor.

April's going to be a really busy month for me. This weekend I'm home, but I'm going to London for Easter with Sally, and then back to Galway and maybe up to Sligo with Caitlin the weekend after that. The fourth weekend of April will be Belgium with Sally (resident Belgian beer expert), and then I'm hopefully going to Paris for May Day weekend. I'm trying to plan one week-long trip in May, either to Prague and Vienna or to Berlin and Poznan, the old capital of Poland.

I'll break spring break up in a few sections of the next few days, so no one gets overwhelmed by a single epic post.

I hope your Marches are going out like lambs.

Four Weeks, Four Sentences

So I went to Belfast, and then Andrew came. St. Patrick's Day came and went, then Andrew and I packed off for Edinburgh to visit Lucea Spinelli and Kevin Kerr. Ami Li arrived , Andrew left, and Ami and I went to Amsterdam. Ami and I got back from Amsterdam yesterday, and we got back from an Animal Collective show a half hour ago.


So there you have it. All of my papers are due this next week, so I can't guarentee I'll be giving you many more details before all that is out of the way. You WILL get a full account, those who want one, as soon as I'm able.

Love, Me.

Ireland: The Procrasti-Nation

I've been exhausted. All week. Do you want to know why?

THE PAVACHS ARE HERE! My mom, dad, and sister landed in Dublin on Saturday morning. They were groggier than I expected, but then, I guess I forgot how wretched the flight can be, especially if it isn't direct. They brought me a few of my dresses, my critter shorts, and a new pair of keds, so I'm completely ready for Irish spring.

So about that spring--it was a false alarm. Everyone's back in their wool coats, and we're expecting snow next week. It's been cold and rainy pretty much the whole time my parents have been here--the sun only just came out when they hopped on the train to see Caitlin in Galway. Mom and Dad have been able to roll with the punches pretty well, but Lydia seems pretty pissed about the bad weather. She refuses to go to any museums or parks--she sleeps in every day and waits to go shopping. I want to wake her up, tell her she's in Europe for the first time and she'd better appreciate it, but it's no use. She's the happiest when she's sending her boyfriend facebook messages in my apartment. Ho-hum.

I took the 'Rents to watch the Ireland v. England rugby match at the Bleeding Horse on Saturday night. They were pretty loopy off of jetlag, and I'm sure Dad's pain medication for his broken wrist didn't help matters. At any rate, they insisted upon buying every one of my friends a pint. That included myself and Lydia, my sister, who is 16 and isn't officially allowed to drink, even here (maybe in Germany?). It was really surreal, being in that type of social situation with my parents. They were mostly just nervous about my sister--my mom kept pulling me aside and telling me to watch out for her, and make sure that she eats something.

We didn't make it long at the game before the draggin' Pavachs got hungry, so we went down the road to Bobo's Burgers. I'd never been there before, and this was obviously a large oversight on my part. Bobo's made quirky, crazy burgers of all kinds (Lydia, a fake vegetarian, went for a falafel burger, and my mom had a lamb burger). I sent my parents home in a cab and took Lydia home with me.

Here's where the awkward bit about this weekend begins--all of us in the suite have our ONLY papers for most of our classes due this Friday. Technically, we could turn them in at the end of the month, but then we wouldn't be able to enjoy spring break (which, for me, consists of Andrew's and Ami's visits). So we've been on academic lockdown for the past week and a half, ever since getting home from Barcelona. Lydia was staying the night in hopes of going out to a pub or club, and there really wasn't anyone in the flat who was interested in going out. We tagged along with my friend Tara, who plays for the Trinity lacrosse team, and went to the big lacrosse party at Tripod, right across the street. However, it was pretty empty in Tripod, and thus, pretty damn lame. I was also exhausted, having woken up early to greet my parents, so we were home in bed by 12:30 a.m.

The next day my parents took my flatmates (and Caitlin, who was visiting again this weekend) out to brunch. My Dad enchanted everyone like he always does, as did my mom, and my flatmates couldn'tve been more thrilled with my family.

The week sort of went downhill from there. It was rainy and cold Sunday night, and after having a delicious meal with red wine at this Thai place called Saba (I also recommended a Chinese Fusion place called Mao, but my dad refused to eat any place named after a communist), I was out. Like a light. At 10:30 p.m. I woke up early to finish my first paper, but I was dragging through my Monday lectures. When I was out of lecture I edited my sister's English paper until dinner at a fantastic (but slow-service) Italian restaurant. I, again, didn't get home until 10 p.m. and went to bed immediately. I woke up early Tuesday to work, didn't get anything done, and fell asleep in lecture. Last night I was sure not to have any wine with dinner, but I still came home in an incredibly unproductive mood.

So now, I'm well-fed, but extremely behind. I just started writing my Irish Literature paper that's due on Friday, though I have to turn it in tomorrow because I'm going to Northern Ireland with the Butler kids this weekend. Luckily, my family took the train out to Galway this morning, and are letting me camp out in the solitude of their hotel room tonight so that I'll be able to finish my paper. I was excited at the prospect of the room's wireless not working, but lo and behold, it works for me. Perfect.

At any rate, I'm powering through because ANDREW'S COMING IN A WEEK (and a half). I'm absolutely thrilled. I took a really long route to the hotel room this afternoon so I could look for cool/romantic/cheap restaurants in my neighborhood. I really hope nothing delays him--three months apart is enough without a few hours more of a delay.

At any rate, I should get back on task. And if anyone has any questions about James Joyce's Dubliners, please send them my way.

p.s. A new revelation about Ireland: The commericals are friggin' wierd. But hysterical.

Grathiath, Barthelona!

Because I'm pressed for time this week, here's a quick top ten favorite parts of my Barcelona weekend:

1-Gee whiz, alcohol is cheap. Wine is actually cheaper than water in most restaurants. The cocktails are about four times stronger than the ones in Dublin, at half the price. 

2-Alcohol is also everywhere--the skuzzy kebab place where we ate the first night, the Starbucks-type coffee shop at the bus station, they all had a variety of liquors just hanging out, I guess in case anyone wanted a bloody mary for breakfast.

3-Mercat de Sant Josef-It's this fantastic, enormous open-air fruit, fish, meat, cheese, and candy market. Extremely colorful, and pretty inexpensive. I could have wandered around all day, just gaping at the lovely food displays.

4-I know it's a cliche thing to notice, but the architecture in Barcelona is astounding. It's not just beautiful, like the architecture in Rome or Vienna, but also extremely innovative and interesting (sometimes to a fault, admittedly). If you'd like to gape at some architectural feats, here's a link to my Facebook album on this subject. It's a public access link, for those of you who have excommunicated yourselves from the Facebook world (Cameron? Breslin?). The big phallic thing is supposed to look like a geyser erupting. I don't know how it's supposed to look like anything but a dildo when it's lit up in electric blue and red at night.

5-The beach--60 degrees and sunny. In February. I merely dipped my toes into the Mediterranean, but there were definitely a few people swimming. One little old man in a speedo scared me to death, because I was sure he was going to get hypothermia and his little old body wouldn't be able to handle it. But then, I suppose he's been swimming in the Mediterranean for longer than I have, he probably knows better.

6-Our hosts were fantastic. A friend from my program had a few friends from Brown that are studying in Barcelona for the term, so he asked them to pick us up from the bus station when we got in. Not only did they pick us up, but they helped us order dinner, showed us around their neighborhood, and helped us find our hostel. We met up with the Brown boys for two more meals, one of which they cooked for us themselves, and they took us to this ancient absinthe bar (in which dusting and cleaning were strictly prohibited, lest it ruin the effect of maybe a hundred years of dust on the chandeliers) and a wild club called Razzmatazz. My flatmate Claire also had some friends from Trinity who met us for drinks and desert, took us to dinner to a charming restaurant on Las Ramblas, and circled places we should see on maps for us. To all those wonderful hosts and hostesses, thank you so much. It would've sucked to have to figure everything out on our own. If you're into social pictures, here's a link to my other Facebook album.

7-The subway system is very clean, and very intuitive, even for a person who doesn't know any Spanish or Catalan. I love me a good subway system.

8-The parks are beautiful. We went to two mountains on Sunday, and just bummed around in the greenery. The parks on the first mountain were mostly old palace gardens, and had the grandeur expected of such places. We went to the second mountain to see Gaudi's Park Guell, made famous by the ANTM screaming bride runway show. 

9-I thought it would be too intense for me, but the whole delayed day thing is actually very intuitive, especially because the sun doesn't really come out in Barcelona until noon. I had very little trouble staying out until 5:30 a.m. Saturday night, even after having toured around all day long. I also really liked eating a small breakfast, and then eating afternoon meals closer together (maybe at 2 and 5 p.m., then dinner at 9 or 10 p.m.). 

10-About 95% of Barcelona is breathtakingly beautiful. Just by design. Even the sidestreets are filled with the cutest apartment buildings, complete with laundry hanging off of tiny balconies and Venetian blinds pulled down over balcony railings. I took more pictures in two days in Barcelona than I have in the past month in Dublin.

In conclusion, it was a fantastic vacation.

However, I'm now feeling academically screwed--I was aiming to finish two ten page papers this week, but with my body recovering from so much excitement (and so much wine), I didn't feel up for it Monday. I almost broke down yesterday after one of my tutorial leaders told me my paper concept was confusing, and that I had better just stick to the given topics. However, I picked myself back up, and now I'm chugging along as fast as I can. My family is visiting next week, so I do have some light at the end of the tunnel. I can't wait to show them all of my favorite places in Dublin, nor can I wait for them to buy me some real groceries. I'm living so miserly right now, scrimping and saving for weekends and vacations. Hopefully my standard of living will improve, if only for a weekend.

I go all my sisters and me...

I rode an emotional rollercoaster this week. I spent most of the early week getting upset and stressed out over my papers. I killed myself worrying about whether or not I was on the right track, even after I asked my professors if I had the right idea. The misery hit its peak when my flatmates/best Dublin friends left for the weekend on Thursday morning. The cable was out, and with everyone out of town, I felt so lonely, as if I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Okay, it wasn't that intense, but I was very unhappy.

And then Sally arrived, and the light shined through! Instantly, I was feeling much better. I've been more homesick (schoolsick, really) than I admitted to myself, and it was incredible to be with a good old friend. Sally's Queen Mary friends Lilly and Hema tagged along, so the flat felt full again. We had a hillariously awkward late Thursday night at a pub, awkward because Dublin is early-to-bed sort of town, and most of the busiest streets were absolutely deserted.

The next morning we arose early and went to get crepes for breakfast. I feel as if I take every person who visits for crepes, but I really don't know anything else that is incredibly tasty and incredibly cheap simultaneously. And then, we walked. All over. All day. And why not? We're poor student types, and the weather was warmer than usual, a tepid 50 degrees or so, and we had our walking shoes on. We went down Dame to visit Dublin castle, then popped in to Christchurch Cathedral, erected by Vikings and hence, really fucking old. Then we walked down the Liffy, took the bridge by the Jameson distillery, trekked back up O'Connell and ended up having Guinnesses at the original Temple Bar. I tried to fill the girls in on all the history I could, but I really don't know anything about Irish history except for the Easter Rising and the Celtic Tiger.

Tuckered out (and a little tipsy), we headed back to Iveagh Court to rest for a bit. Hema met up with a friend, incidentally a Butler year girl, and Lilly, Sally, and I headed for dinner at Zaytoon, home of the most massive kebabs you can imagine. It took us a good hour to eat, and another hour to recover from what we ate. Sally and I discussed and psychoanalyzed the Hamilton community for most of the time, but Lilly was a good egg about it, bless her.

Friday night was a bit of a mess, the kebabs sitting like rocks in our stomach and the itnerary involving a trek out to student housing for a birthday party. The party was in a tiny dorm kitchen, and was actually broken up on the grounds that it was unauthorized. The security guard literally came in and said, "This is an unauthorized party. You should have registered your party. I need everyone to leave immediately." We were dragged by the Birthday Girl to the Pav, the Trinity equivalent to the Little Pub. The Pav is always swamped, with most of its patrons sitting on its steps or around its outer balcony, and seeing this from a distance, often at two in the afternoon, the idea of a Pav night never appealed to me before. It turns out instincts were right. With Sally's guidance, I realized that I really don't like the college drinking scene anymore--it's always too crowded and noisy to be comfortable. We left a little too late, and ended up at my favorite pub, Devitt's, and enjoyed their live folk music while we recollected ourselves. We were in bed by one to rest up for the next day's activities.

The next morning Claire and Sarah came home from Brussels at around 8 a.m., to find that not only both their beds but also one of the couches were occupied with my visitors. I felt terrible for forgetting to tell them that Hema was staying over an extra night for awkward reasons, and they were reasonably cranky about it. Luckily, Sally was the couch-dweller and jumped up the moment she realized my flatmates were home, but I was afraid the faux pas would negatively affect my flatmates' impressions of the London set. However, Sally and her gang evacuated the beds by 10 and all was forgotten.

Sally and co. went to the Guinness factory, and gave me a glowing report when I met up with them later on. We met for lunch at a pub in Dublin 8, which was in the strangest suburban neighborhood I've ever seen. The desolate-looking brick condos and empty streets reminded me a lot of Redford, the Detroit suburb where my grandparents lived for forty years. There weren't any restaurants or convenience stores for blocks, only pubs. Quite depressing. Our pub, the Black Lion, was a diamond in the rough. The decor was a jumble of Dublin drinking paraphernalia and childish curios. I suppose this is the type of pub Applebees or Max and Erma's bastardizes in the USA. We had some lovely soup, and then headed back to visit St. Valentine.

Yes, you read correctly, the relics of St. Valentine (or at least SOME relics of St. Valentine) are in Dublin, and not too far from my house! Whitefriar Church, the home of said relics, was one of the gaudiest Catholic churches I've ever been inside. Many of the different elements of the church were lovely, like the mosaic altar and ancient stained glass windows. However, all the conflicting aesthetics smooshed together in one place was a little daunting. There was even faux-rock cove by the door with a painting of the Virgin Mary inside. I described it to Andrew as Catholic kitsch. Anyway, we said a prayer for our love-lives, and then headed home to prepare for our Valentine's Day festivities.

For weeks, my flatmates and I have been planning the ultimate Valentine's Day slumber party, complete with chocolate, girlie movies, and a ton of booze. I was nervous that Sally and Lilly would prefer to go to a pub or something on Saturday night, but they were as thrilled about the idea as the rest of us were. So, we picked up pizza, movies, Bailey's and red wine, the girls in the next flat brought over enormous bars and trays of Cadbury candies, strawberries, and champagne, and we settled down and watched The Birdcage and Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex *But Were Too Afraid To Ask. It was the best Valentine's Day celebration any of us could remember having. There's something so sacred about a well-executed slumber party, I think it's something that men will never understand about us women...

On Sunday morning, the sun came out. It was gorgeous, 50 degrees, blue skies... heaven. Sally, Lilly and I met up with Hema and her Butler friend Emily at my favorite place in the whole world, Cafe en Seine. We feasted on Irish cheese plates and bruschetta. They told me all about London, and how cheap everything is in Camden Market, how one can get two cocktails for 7 pounds at one place and a bowl of pad thai for 5 pounds at another. I hate to say it, but us students are making out like bandits in this recession. I sent them on their way, and then spent the rest of the morning walking around parts of Dublin I hadn't seen before. Everything was so serene and quiet (it was Sunday afternoon, after all), and I felt an intense love for Dublin I hadn't felt since I just arrived and all the Christmas lights were still hanging all down O'Connell and Grafton. Reflecting on Hamilton with Sally made me realize that I'm glad that I'm here, I'm glad to be away and seeing the world, and as much as I miss a lot of Hamiltonians, this is really where I should be right now.

So that's all for now. I'm off to Barcelona this weekend for Carnival. If it's even just as nice as it was in Dublin this past weekend, I'll be thrilled. All the reading I've done on Barcelona's carnival makes me think that it's just going to be three days of confetti. Everywhere. Excellent.